


The Whole Messy Thing of It

by illusive_delusions



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Literally so self indulgent, also, can u tell im on my period, if this isn’t the gods honest female fantasy I don’t know what is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 18:52:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15346326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illusive_delusions/pseuds/illusive_delusions
Summary: Anne struggles with her ‘womanly flowering time’ and all the problems lying therein.





	The Whole Messy Thing of It

Anne Shirley-Cuthbert had grown up a lot in the year and a half since she had awoken in the night in a pool of her own blood and frantically wailed to Marilla that she was dying. For starters, she had talked it over with the other girls and come to realize that the whole unpleasant mess was completely natural (and, when she wasn’t in the throes if it she would be able to admit, kind of amazing from a biological standpoint). She’d also had her suffering put into pretty stark perspective when she had encountered proper, real life, grown up suffering in the face of John Blythe, God rest his soul. 

So in the months following her first cycle, Anne had managed the pain and bloating and irritability rather well in her opinion, rarely allowing herself to snap at her family or her classmates, and never ever missing a day of school despite her discomfort and paranoia about leakage. 

That hardly meant, however, that she didn’t fantasize about it. She dreamt of laying up for a week every month like an Elizabethan lady, of smacking Jerry Baynard in the face with a shovel when he tormented her during her womanly time, of eating a whole layer cake by herself — consequences be damned. Because, when you thought about it, it really was ever so unfair. The boys didn’t have to contend with anything quite so uniquely horrifying and treacherous, although Marilla had briefly alluded to the idea that the boys had their own troubles to deal with. 

Still, Anne couldn’t imagine any one of her male classmates coming to school sitting on a cotton rag with aching bellies and roiling insides without going positively insane. And the worst part was that she wasn’t even allowed to talk about it! It would be ever so nice if, on the days when she was feeling “under the weather” she could simply announce to the class “No, today I shan’t go up to the board to do sums or recitations, I steadfastly refuse to stand and sing ‘God Save the Queen’, and if any of you mention my pimples I’ll shove you into the Lake of Shining Waters. I’m a little too busy today dealing with the process by which all life on Earth is made possible, thank you very much!,” and be done with it. But that, of course, was entirely out of the question. 

And really that wasn’t the worst of it. If she were being honest, the real worst part of it all was that, despite her best efforts, she knew that her ability to pose a meaningful threat to Gilbert Blythe’s academic standing was greatly hurt by her great hurting. It was just impossible to drum up her usual vigor for academia when she was so positively uncomfortable. And Gilbert knew it. 

Not it per se, obviously, she would have positively died from mortification if any of the boys ever knew for certain what ailed her during the second week of each month, but he definitely knew something was the matter. He was like a lion on the Serengeti, prepared to pounce at the first demonstrable sign of weakness from his opponent, and try as she might, those signs always seemed to show through. 

She would walk slowly up to the chalkboard to do her problems in the arithmetic challenges Ms. Stacy set out for them and Gilbert, mistaking her discomfort for intimidation, would manage to get into her head just enough to complete his long division quicker. She would take a moment longer than usual to collect her thoughts before answering a question, and he would not-so-helpfully chime in with the correct date or quote or idea and steal her thunder. She would be in such excruciating pain that she felt like she couldn’t see straight and he would all of the sudden do something nice like smile at her and throw her whole world off kilter. 

It was true that they had become friends since his return to Avonlea so nice things like smiles were to be expected on occasion, but with both of them declaring their vocations their academic rivalry had ratcheted up several notches ahead of college entrance exams and Anne would not be deterred from her goal by his crinkle-eyed smiles, she just wouldn’t. 

So it was that she found herself on this May evening, trudging across the fields to the Blythe-Lacroix farm down the road to return a sewing form that Marilla had borrowed from Mary. Usually the prospect of seeing Mary, of having the opportunity to place her hand on her belly to feel the baby kick, would have delighted Anne. But this evening she regarded with dread the idea of having to face Gilbert and Bash, and of having to confront the whole notion of babies in general. She ached all over her stomach and back and she felt in general as though somebody had stuck a pin in her foot and let all the energy out of her like a deflating balloon. It was fair to say that she was harboring resentment towards the whole of the baby-making process that evening. 

Of course, as she crested the hill and the cozy home came in to view, Anne’s spirits were lifted ever so slightly. She couldn’t help it. Mary was truly a kindred spirit and since she had come to Avonlea, Gilbert’s house had become another place where Anne felt at peace. 

Upon knocking at the sturdy oak door, Bash appeared in the entryway to beckon her inside. He wore an apron about his waist and held a wooden spoon in one hand and a bottle of curry seasoning in the other. Anne smiled at the image. Bash and Mary truly were life-mates. 

“I’m cookin’ up some of my famous Trinidadian grub Anne-girl, you got to stay for dinner!” he called over his shoulder as he returned to the kitchen, leaving Anne to divest herself of her boots and hat by the coat rack. The smells engulfing the house made her mouth water. 

“I came to return these to Mary,” Anne said, placing the sewing forms on the bookshelf where she knew they belonged, “but I suppose Matthew and Marilla could do without me for one supper,” she conceded coming up beside Bash and peering longingly into the pot of absolutely scrumptious smelling stew. 

“That’s the spirit!” Bash said, handing her the spoon as he stepped into the pantry for some other spice or ingredient. 

“Where’s Mary?” Anne asked, hoping that the unspoken question — where’s Gilbert? — hadn't come through. 

“She’s laid up in bed for the moment havin’ a little rest, the doc says it’s good for the baby and lord knows she can use it,” he said. 

“The real doctor or our esteemed Doctor Blythe?” Anne asked with a smile, and Bash returned it with a grin of his own. 

“Both actually, but Blythe has been insufferable for the past three weeks worryin’ over her so, you’d think it was his baby gotten him so fussy if you didn’t know any better,” Bash said. “As it is now he’s out slopping the pigs before dinner, would you mind setting the table?”

Anne hopped to it, setting out four sets of plates and cups and cutlery with the same ease and comfort as she did in her own home, the pain and discomfort of her monthly momentarily forgotten in her concern over Mary and the baby’s health. 

Pretty soon Bash was taking his culinary masterpiece off the stovetop and waking up his wife, and Gilbert came in from outside greeting Anne warmly as he briefly examined Mary. The four sat around the table in the perfect harmony of friends sharing a good meal and, despite the spicy nature of the food, Anne seemed to have been granted a brief sort of respite from her pain. 

“— And then Josie Pye dared Jane Andrews to hop around the entire schoolyard on one foot and she did it, can you believe it?” Anne laughed as she recounted the story to the couple across the table. 

“You’re leaving out the part where she switched feet halfway through it and Josie didn’t even notice,” Gilbert added, taking a sip of his water and reveling in the fresh memory of the school game. 

“Oh, right, yes, now that was funny. You know I’d normally never condone cheating of course, but getting a cheat over on mean old Josie Pye almost seems like a virtue rather than a sin,” Anne snorted. “You know she once told everyone at school that my red hair was indication of ‘poor breeding’ and that it was evidence of my illegitimate birth?” Anne said, laughing now at the ridiculous notion which had made her blood boil so at the time. 

“She did what?!” Mary cried, absentmindedly rubbing her hand over her belly, “I tell you Bash if our child ever goes around spreading such nasty rumors I don’t know what I’d do!”

“Oh you needn’t worry about that at all!” Anne hurried. “You and Bash will be such lovely parents and your child will have a wonderful home. It’s been my experience that children only act so nastily if they’re missing out on things like that,” she pronounced, setting her spoon down in her empty bowl. 

“Well,” said Gilbert, who had gone silent at hearing the disgusting rumor Josie Pye had spread. “She must be missing out on quite a lot at home to come up with something that awful.”

“Some people’s scope for the imagination is so narrow it can only muster up insults,” replied Anne cooly. “I’d feel sorry for her if she weren’t so cruel.” 

The conversation shifted then away from cruel little girls and towards happier topics and soon Gilbert, Anne, and Bash were crammed in the small kitchen doing the washing up after Mary had excused herself to bed. 

“I’m gonna go check on her,” Bash announced after the last dish was done. He threw his dish towel down on the counter and bid Anne a cheerful, if absent minded, farewell as he made his way to the master bedroom. 

“Is she really that bad off?” Anne queried worriedly, watching Bash retreat down the hall. 

“The doctor says it’s preeclampsia” Gilbert mused. “It sounds really bad I know but they’ve got her on bed rest and they’re sure she and the baby will be fine.”

Anne wasn’t entirely sure what ‘preeclampsia’ meant but she resolved to look it up in her physical sciences text when she got home instead of stooping to ask the definition of Gilbert himself. Her hand traced lightly over her abdomen as she idly wondered if it felt anything at all like her cramps. She sure hoped not, for Mary’s sake. 

“Say, would you want to stay a bit and study for exams maybe?” Gilbert asked suddenly, startling her out of her reverie. “Revising for history is a lot easier when you’re with someone else who actually knows the dates.”

A blush played about her cheeks at the compliment which she hoped could be misattributed to the candlelight in the darkening room. Supper had been served early for Mary’s sake but night was enveloping the room at last. She contemplated the time of evening and decided that Marilla wouldn’t worry about her too much seeing as Anne often stayed longer than planned for at the Blythe home these days. 

Anne nodded her assent to Gilbert’s request and the two took up their seats across from each other at the dining table, passing the book back and forth between them and taking turns quizzing one another. 

Anne’s pain came back with a vengeance after dinner and she sat, clenching her jaw when it was Gilbert’s turn to ask the questions. 

“Um, is it 1743?” She guessed at his latest query. 

“So close, 1734,” he crowed with a look that Anne could only categorize as ‘smug’. She groaned and placed her head in her hands, frustrated at her obvious error. 

“Hey, it’s okay, that’s the first one you’ve gotten wrong and anyways exams are weeks away!” Said Gilbert, backing down from the role of rival and stepping into the role of friend. “When I asked Moody that one earlier he said 1492!”

Anne looked at him between her fingers with an ever-so-slight smile and reached her hands out for the book. 

“Well, I suppose I did get the century right at the very least,” she conceded, just as another stabbing pain wrenched through her. She managed to stop just in time to avoid grabbing her stomach and giving herself dead away. 

“Hey, are you alright?” Gil asked, suddenly easing into his ‘Doctor Blythe’ voice. “You seem kinda...out of it? Even in class earlier today?”

“I’m fine!” She blurted, arming her ready excuse for any and all things related to her cycle. “I’ve just got a bit of a headache is all.”

“Mm.” He said, studying her with his eyes like she was a textbook page herself. 

“Um, maybe I should go home and rest my eyes a bit, ya know?”

She leapt from her seat and straightened out her dress hoping beyond hope to the lord Heavenly Father himself that now would not prove to be the time and place where she would leak through the back of her skirts. She thought if that happened in front of Gilbert, doctorly consternation and all, she would have no other choice but to throw herself into the sea. 

“Hey, wait, stay a second,” Gil urged, having no knowledge of her internal turmoil. Standing up too he entreated, “Let me make you some tea?” 

The last syllable turned up forming the offer into a question, and standing there with the candlelight flickering across his features he looked so genuinely concerned for her that her hormone-addled brain could not think of one compelling reason to refuse his kindness. 

She sat back down and watched as he busied himself setting the kettle on. It occurred to her idly that someday if she ever had a husband, if she was suffering from cramps or headaches or the preeclampsia she would very much like to have a partner who would make her tea and care for her with the same tenderness that Bash showed for Mary. 

Suddenly she was jolted from her silly notions by Gil gently placing a cup of tea prepared to her exact liking in front of her. She met his eyes and regarded there for the first time not a teasing light, but, perhaps, a… tender one. She shook her head to uproot the ridiculous thoughts taking hold there. 

Utter ridiculousness, she thought then in Gilbert Blythe’s kitchen that evening as they continued their studies. She’d all but forgotten the brief flash of something which she had surely misconstrued as gentleness in his eyes as she made her way home that night. 

Years down the road, when the title of Doctor had been bestowed upon Gil properly, and when she herself had collected the mouthful of a name ‘Mrs. Anne Shirley-Cuthbert Blythe’ (Ms. Blythe to her students and A.C. Blythe on her manuscript cover pages), she would vaguely recall a spring evening when, even as teenagers, her dear Gil had displayed to her the absolute depths of his affections. It brought a smile to her heart to think of every headache, cramp, bruise, paper cut, heartache, and labor contraction her husband had walked her through with that same tenderness over the years. She was a very lucky woman she knew, and she had to remind herself that she’d been a lucky girl from the moment he had stepped into her life all those years ago. 

The years had bestowed upon her another pearl of wisdom too, however, this one from Mrs. Rachel Lynde with which she could not help but agree:

Better pregnant than menstruating. Amen.

**Author's Note:**

> Self indulgent drivel about period stuff because I loved the way they handled it in season 1 so there! Xx


End file.
